Tchibo Floor Cleaning Robot Review

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As reported the other day, I
got me one of those low-cost floor cleaning robots from the German coffee chain
Tchibo. This floor cleaning robot looks similar to the
Roomba robot, but has no vacuum function. This robot cleans just by brushing
the floor, still at $110 (89,90 Euros) I thought I give it spin.

Taking it out
of the box things where still good. The red floor robot has decent looks and the
manufacturing quality seems alright too. The easy to understand manual told me
to charge the robot for 12 hours. The next day, after switching the Tchibo robot
on and selecting one of the 3 room cleaning programs (small, medium and large
room) the robot started to disappoint.
First I was still laughing as the robot confirmed the mode selection with a 5
second Chinese toy sounding melody. After doing this 3 times I got sick of it.
It is just crazy to have such a cheap and ugly sound effect in a product that is
positioned in a modern futuristic life style segment. Anyway lets focus on the
main question, can this low-cost robot clean? The answer is not really. I tried
it on hardwood floors and on tiles.
The results are not satisfying at all. My wife was just shaking her head,
watching the robot driving around for 10 min. in the kitchen and redistributing
the dust. Corners and edges stay dirty, as the robot is not getting close enough
to the walls. So for me this is not saving any time cleaning. Additionally this
floor cleaning robot also makes quite some noise driving around, so you cannot
watch TV in the same room as the TV commercials suggested.
The driving pattern itself is actually ok. It gets almost everywhere and also
chairs and table legs are not a real problem. The issue is that even if it's
covering the whole room, the dirt pickup is just not good enough and lots of
dirt stays behind. I believe that a strong vacuum function is essential for a
floor cleaning robot.
I am back to cleaning myself and Tchibo moved also on to sell this week
accessories for organized living - floor cleaning robots have been hip last
week.

The Author

Luigi LugmayrLuigi Lugmayr (Google+) is the founding chief Editor of I4U News and brings over 15 years
experience in the technology field to the ever evolving and exciting
world of gadgets. He started I4U News back in 2000 and evolved it into
vibrant technology magazine.
Luigi can be contacted directly at ml@i4u.com.